Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (43 page)

a big funny laugh.

“I’m speechless,” Dick said to Marcus as Stephanie, sporting a

big phony smile, walked to the table full of exotic desserts. “I don’t know how you creative types do it, week in and week out. These

cream puffs are to die for!” he mumbled with his mouth full.

“I agree!” Loretta Nady had also homed in on the dessert table.

She took two cream puffs. Dick took two more; Loretta took three; Dick took three plus a couple of chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Which agent could eat more? Which one could eat faster? Loretta stuffed a few gourmet brownies in her purse.

Lacking a purse, Dick conceded defeat. He put his chewed straw-

berry stems on the table. “Loretta Nady-o,” he swallowed, “where’d you come from?”

“I’m never one to miss a celebration,” she said, cramming a

Mallomar into her mouth, celebrating gluttony as well. “Good

show! Wonderful show! Funny show!”

“Yeah,” Marcus Pooley said proudly, “this one came from our

gonads. I mean, really, could we have been more taxed this week?

An impossible budget, our dear director friend Jasper dead—what a tragedy—and the budget again . . . which, may I add, we not only met but came in under, quite substantially under. And a cast that refused to listen to an old has-been.”

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Stephanie joined them in time to add her two cents. “Maybe next time,” she said, staring meaningfully at Dick’s chocolate-drizzled tie,

“somebody can pitch us a director who can actually direct.”

“Just as long as we have a show,” Lance interjected.

“You’re welcome,” Stephanie stole from J.T.

Lance needed to leave this set—this night—this week—with a

sense of balance, of the status quo maintained; the show was still a hit. Tonight’s show was adored by the studio audience.
Just don’t
rock the boat . . . it’s headed for
Xanadu, he thought.
Wait—that
movie was a flop.
Paradise
. Yeah,
Paradise.
No—
Titanic
! The box
office, not the boat.
“Well,
by God,
we have ourselves a tight, funny show!” he felt he had to add.

“Everyone is coming to my son’s bar mitzvah tomorrow at the

Staples Center, right?” Dick asked, enthusiastically.

The celebration came to a screeching halt. Lance gave Dick a

withering look. “
Bar mitzvah?
Why’d you have to ruin the moment?” he asked.

The show was over. And the
show
was over.

As J.T. gathered his belongings, he watched the agents and the

managers congratulating the
talent,
everyone now dive-bombing the dessert table. Debbie was all over Devon Driver. There was talk of feature films during hiatus and commercials in Japan for millions of dollars, but not a word or a look was aimed at J.T.

“I think I got the new Oliver Stone flick,” Devon said with a

sexy smirk.

“Like, no way!” Debbie responded lustfully.

“No way,” Rocky repeated. “Veronica at Quad told me I was

first on a small list to star in his film.”

“Devon . . .” Betty said, interjecting herself between Devon and Debbie, “I thought we were goin’ out after the show.”

“Uh,” Devon thought fast. “Well, Betty, my girlfriend wants

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

me to come home and play Classic Rock to her tummy. Somethin’

about, like, classic-music-programmin’ the kid in the womb.” He winked at Deb.

Ash walked onto the set and shook hands with Kirk. “You did

a wonderful job, Kirk.”

“Thank you. I really couldn’t have done it without your help.

And J.T.’s.”

No shit,
Ash thought.

“Yeah, I guess. No shit.”

“Damn. I must be really tired. Did I say that out loud?” Ash

mumbled.

“I guess you’re spendin’ too much time around J.T.”

“Listen, Kirk—man to man, just between us: if you put in a

good word with Deb and with Lance, you could probably save J.T.’s job. You didn’t hear that from me, but it would be a . . . classy thing to do.”

“Right,” Kirk said, and twisted his head twice; then he walked

forward, then back—then forward, then back.

Poor kid,
Ash thought. And this time, he did just
think
it. Ash patted Kirk on the shoulder, then looked through the swarm of executives, agents, and managers on the floor for J.T.

Deb and Loretta Nady pretend-ran with itty-bitty baby steps

to the approaching Kirk, with Lance following close behind. In

triplicate, they opened their arms as if to say,
Come to our bosoms.

We will care for you, nurture you, protect you
. And, of course, they threw in a smidgen of repentance. They hugged, they laughed,

they air-kissed; and when Kirk opened his mouth and the words

“J.T.” came out, he had their attention.

“What about him?” Deb asked.

“Yes. I’d like your honest opinion,” Lance chimed in.

“He’s a shit,” Loretta Nady groused.

“Um, J.T. . . .” Kirk said, and his eyes suddenly were in line with Ash’s.

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Ash nodded and mouthed,
This is your chance
.

Kirk pulled his eyes away, and looked at the three people who

controlled his future. “Um, J.T.? Oh . . . nuthin’. So ya thought it was a good show?”

“Good?! You were
brilliant
!” Loretta slathered on the praise.

Ash tried to get Kirk’s attention again, but Kirk refused to look back.

What a pity,
Ash thought he thought.

“Say what-a-what?” J.T. asked.

“Oh . . . nuthin’.”

As J.T. left, the members of the camera crew gathered together.

All the
schmucks
came over and quietly congratulated J.T. on a great job, and for the first time that week, J.T. knew it was all worth it.

Debbie looked across at the gathering around J.T. “What’s, like, all
that
about?” she asked the Pooleys.

Stephanie was eating chocolate-covered cherries. A bit of li-

queur goo dribbled out of the corner of her mouth when she

opened it to say, “Oh, it’s just the schmucks.” She turned her back on the view of J.T. and the crew. “Now, about next week . . .”

Marcus took the baton and began to complain about the

budget.

Ash stayed out of sight, listening.

J.T. and the rest of the crew were gathering outside of the elephant door, drinking beers off the prop truck.

“J.T.!” Ash called out.

“Sorry,” J.T. said to his best friend, “I just had to get outta there.

I can’t breathe in the cave. I needed some air.”

“J.T., listen, I just overheard a conversation.”

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“Yeah?” J.T. said.

“Yeah. The Pooleys, Lance, and Debbie—and get this, your

wonderfully loyal agent—along with your new best friend, Loretta Nady, were scheming about how not to pay you for the two upcoming episodes that you were supposed to do. The episodes that you are
pay-or-play
on. They still believe you’ll negotiate because you’re so desperate for the cash for your kid.”

“Thanks for telling me,” J.T. said too quietly, and then turned and walked back into the cave.

“J.T.—” Ash started to protest.

“Asher, stay out of this one. Go home. Back to classes. Keep

your cell on. You may be working next week or we both may be

headed back to the real world. But for now, this may get ugly, and I’ve contaminated you enough.”

“J.T.—”

“Not the time,” J.T. said over his shoulder, walking with pur-

pose toward the big shots back in the cave. He had been through this routine before: Ash was about to warn him about his temper.

J.T. had had no sleep, and didn’t want to hear it.

Ash ran and got in front of J.T., blocking his way.

“Ash—”

“Listen, man, you’re my best friend—”

“I know, I know. Just lemme do what I’ve gotta do.”

Ash stopped J.T. again. “And I wouldn’t be much of a best

friend if I didn’t tell you that . . . shit, J.T., you crossed the line.

What you did with the cue cards—fucking brilliant. But changing dialogue? Putting the preshoot in and bypassing the executives, the showrunners, the producers—shit, you’re one lucky mother

that the audience dug this show. I don’t think your stuff was funnier than theirs. I think it all sucked. People just love that cast.

It’s their time. Period. It’s TV. And even though the preshoot was great stuff, you put that in to fuck with the Pooleys. I know you.

You forgot about the show just to fuck with them. J.T., you got so R o b b y

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3 1 3

full
of yourself, and, and, so hell-bent on landing a sucker punch, you ended up just as bad as them. You got yourself one bad case of cave-madness, my friend.”

J.T. blinked twice, trying to get moisture to his contacts. He

wasn’t sure that his vision was clear; he knew he heard the words, but they couldn’t be coming from his best friend.

“Um, Ash? Is that . . . you?”

“You know it is. You know I’m right. And I know you know

you were wrong.”

“Morality? Is that where you’re goin’?”

“It’s the card you keep up your sleeve. It’s not fair to use it as a trick. You either do what’s right or you don’t. Let’s be real.”

“And you’re tellin’ me this because . . . you’re suddenly my conscience?”

Ash touched J.T. ever so gently, but it felt like the hand of a dad placing the paw of righteousness on his five-year-old boy’s shoulder, and J.T. shrugged it off. Ash went on anyway, “Because you’re gonna march in there the way you do, all holier-than-thou, and this time you’re gonna set yourself up to lose every-

thing you came here for: Jeremy. You fucked up. You crossed

the line. Those are facts. They can use those facts against you.

You won’t see
three
paychecks. Shit, you’ll be lucky to see
one
—

if you’re not fined, to begin with. Don’t go back in there and

make matters worse.”

J.T. didn’t really care if Ash was right, and he knew Ash was

right. But J.T. was toxic with malice.

“You’re a good man, Asher. I’m lucky to have you for a best

friend.”

Ash allowed himself to ease off when he heard J.T.’s kind

words. Then J.T. began to move past him. “But get the fuck outta my way.”

* * *

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“Oh no,” Dick whispered to the Pooleys, “he’s
baaaack
.”

J.T. stopped and stared at his enemas—one step past enemies.

“Well, first off,” he said, “I’d like to say,
Shame on you
.”

“Shame? Really? That’s the best you can do?” Marcus laughed.

“Shame on . . . us? How ’bout shame on you, you fuck?”

“J.T., really, don’t make things worse than they already are,”

Dick said, enthusiastically.

J.T. kept his voice carefully controlled. “You are my agent. I

thought you were my friend. How can I ever trust you again?”

“Trust?!” Dick laughed. “Oh, grow up, J.T. Trust! That’s a good one.”

“I know all of you are trying to figure out how not to pay me

for my other two episodes. I want you all to know that I will be here Monday morning, ready to work and ready to fulfill my contrac-tual obligations and ready to be paid for my services,” J.T. said.

“No!” Dick jumped in. “J.T., look, come to the bar mitzvah

tomorrow at the Staples Center and we’ll have everything worked out by then.”

“Am I officially fired?” J.T. asked.

“No,” Marcus Pooley said with hateful glee. “You’re officially

fucked!”

“By tomorrow at my son’s Staples Center bar mitzvah, every-

thing will be worked out,” Dick said, with authoritative compassion. He gave the others a Significant Look, as if J.T. couldn’t spot a conspiracy when he was the object of one. “Everything will be fi-nalized. Trust me,” he said reflexively. “Debbie, Lance, the Pooleys, everyone will be there. We will have discussed this little problem and we all will know what we can all look forward to for
the next
two weeks of work
. Sound good?!”

Dick Beaglebum was actually enjoying—no, loving—all of the

intrigue.
It must be like a gambler’s high,
J.T. thought.

“You know, I’ll be there tomorrow. It’s been truly awful. Good

night,” J.T. said, never raising his voice, and turned his back on peo-R o b b y

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3 1 5

ple who, if it were wartime,

would have shot him as he

The Hollywood Dictionary

walked away. But it was just

FIX IT IN POST:
The last stop on

television, and since Steph-

the Rationalize It train of false

anie had left her nuclear

hopes. In film and on TV, when

bomb in the office, all they

something isn’t as good as it

could do was stab him in

should be, the next phrase is

usually, “We’ll fix it in post.”

the back, hoping to see him

Postproduction, that is. (In mu-

slowly bleed to death.

sic, the phrase is: “We’ll fix it in

The show was neither

the mix.” In the real world, “I’ll

spectacular nor spectacu-

fix it tomorrow.”)

larly awful. It just . . . existed.

DIRECTOR’S CUT:
The producers

And J.T. knew that he had,

are obligated to give the director

under Directors Guild rules,

a day to do his or her cut. The

one pass to edit the show

producers are not obligated to

and fix it in post. Just as a

ever view the director’s cut.

magician might use sleight

of hand to give the impres-